Ouija: Origin of Evil Stars Reveal Why They’re Proud Of The Film

Despite starring in the upcoming horror filmOuija: Origin of Evil, Elizabeth Reaser and Henry Thomas haven’t had any terrible paranormal experiences with the infamous game. Thomas explains, “I played it once or twice but I didn’t have a spooky Ouija experience, until this!” Reaser shares, “I mean I grew up playing with them and I think it was always fun to try to scare yourself, you know, with your girlfriends at a slumber party and now I look at it in a very different way. To me I don’t want to invite that into my world.”

Screen Rant caught up with Reaser and Thomas at the film’s L.A. press day to discuss the challenges of filming, their favorite on-set snack, and why Ouija: Origin of Evil made them so proud.

Congratulations on the movie.

Elizabeth Reaser: Thank you.

Henry Thomas: Thank you.

That’s awesome, so let’s start with the obvious do either of you have experience with Ouija boards or any ghost stories in real life?

Thomas: I mean we grew up in the same basic generation that Ouija boards were around and at friend’s houses and things. But I mean, I played it once or twice but I didn’t have a spooky Ouija experience, until this!

Right (laughs).

Reaser: (laughs) Yeah this is changed everything for me in relating to Ouija boards. I mean I grew up playing with them and I think it was always fun to try to scare yourself, you know, with your girlfriends at a slumber party and now I look at it in a very different way. To me I don’t want to invite that into my world.

That’s how I am. I’m like I don’t even want to open the portal because I’m that superstitious. So it makes sense.

What was the most challenging part about filming Ouija?

Thomas: Working with Henry Thomas.

Reaser: (jokingly) Henry was a super hardcore diva. No, I think for me the hard part was that my character is a widow and she’s grieving and my character doesn’t know that she’s in a horror movie or that there are these things happening. She’s really just coping with the loss of her husband and dealing with her kids and I think that was the really hard part was all the sort of pain that went into it.

That makes sense what about for you Henry what was the most challenging part about filming Ouija?

Thomas: The challenging things for me and films always is logistical you know. It’s always keeping your energy and being focused because it’s a protracted experience, you know, like I love watching film when it’s done and seeing it all cut together but when you’re making it it’s sometimes very boring. And you can sometimes lose sight of things but we had a good experience, we had a good set, the crew was great, the director was great, we had a great cast and we ended up having a lot of laughs making the film it was like shooting was a comedy.

Reaser: And that’s a rare thing I mean usually you have one bad apple or something and everybody was really, really fun.

Elizabeth: I mean the hardest part for me was not eating a bucket of Red Vines every day.

Henry: And Cheetos.

Elizabeth: And the Cheetos-your Cheeto problem.

Are you addicted to Red Vines?

Reaser: I am yeah, and they always have them at craft services you know they always have them on movie sets.

They do, I don’t know what that’s about.

Reaser: It’s horrible.

Thomas: It’s hard to say no.

So what’s your proudest performance as actors throughout your career, what do you think?

Thomas: Ouija (2) Origin of Evil.

Not E.T.?

Thomas: That one too. I don’t know I’m proud of everything. I’m proud of this film because I don’t think it’s your usual horror film. There’s a story there, there’s acting there which I’m proud of, I’m proud that they let us do that that’s exciting.

Reaser: I’m proud of this movie. I’m surprise that we even got to make this I mean the fact that I’m playing a single mother in the late 60’s and I’m having this romance with the priest, all these things that you know you don’t see every day and the fact that we got to go deep into these scenes, that’s a very rare occurrence.